


Madame Protector

by Hoothootmotherf_ckers



Series: character studies [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, I just have a lot of feelings about lucretia okay, Spoilers, The Stolen Century, sort of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:43:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13711086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoothootmotherf_ckers/pseuds/Hoothootmotherf_ckers
Summary: There’s so much in the world to learn, and she has so much time ahead of her now. Why limit her knowledge to just wizardry?Lucretia is incredibly powerful, like the actual literal god Jeffandrew calls her the most powerful person he's ever met. But throughout the whole podcast, it's not really clear what her class is - she could be a wizard, but she casts some modified shield of faith, what on earth is her deal??? Well, she had a full hundred years to learn - why should she stop at just one?





	Madame Protector

Lucretia is a wizard. She has always been a wizard, since she was young and began to read and learn and absorb and create. She enjoys being one, likes being able to make and fix and shape what’s real, but she honestly doesn’t use it for much. So much magic is flashy and loud and attention grabbing, and that’s really not her style. She’d rather stay back and chronicle the actions of others than be chronicled herself. Even in mission training, even as part of a team destined for fame, she’d rather avoid the spotlight as much as possible. Taako and Lup and even Merle can handle the dramatic, eye catching stuff. She’ll stand back and prove that it happened.

Somewhere around the third cycle, though, a shift begins. There’s so much in the world to learn, and she has so much time ahead of her now. Why limit her knowledge to just wizardry? For her second class, she chooses monk. She knows about power and magic, but not in this form. She begins to practice with a staff, quietly. She doesn’t really want her family to know. She loves them, but this is hers. She doesn’t want them to try to convince her to try a different school of magic or being a cleric or - ha! - fighting, and she doesn’t really want them to help. This is something she has to do alone, to see if she can. So she meditates and trains and slowly, she masters this new ability. A staff is a normal thing for a magic user to carry, and well, if she can use it as a weapon as well as a focus now, no one needs to know that. Mostly she just uses her new skills for meditation and painting, though. 

Her third class is paladin, though she doesn’t realize it for some time. Somewhere around cycle six, she thinks, what greater goal is there than to protect the power of life and creation from all too literal forces of darkness? She’s beginning to wonder, to imagine - what if she could actually do something to fight the Hunger? What if instead of running and writing, she could stop it? What if she, somehow, could save all these planes, all these lives? But this is wishful thinking more than anything else. After all, what can she do? She’s one woman, one small woman who can barely speak to a crowd, yet alone halt entropy personified. But she doesn’t realize that fighting the dark isn’t all about literal, physical battle. She supports the ones she loves, she saves who she can from the darkness, and she never gives up hoping. And around cycle fifty-seven, she reads the Oath of the Ancients, and thinks, _oh._

Cycle forty-eight, just after the Legato Conservatory, she becomes a bard. Although really, as with paladin, she already was. But it’s after the Conservatory, after Fisher, where she starts to realize how much power words can have. She’s a biographer by trade, her entire life’s purpose has been to tell the stories of others. But now… now her stories are important. They are the only record of so many devoured words, and now she knows that they may not stay book bound forever. Maybe someday, Fisher can share these stories. She and Fisher, together, hold the memories of these planes in their hands. She spends days in the Voidfish's chambers, talking and writing and remembering. She goes back over her old journals, adding and elaborating and just sharing every fact she knows. After all, she has a duty. 

She doesn’t talk about the cycle she becomes a warlock. That horrible, horrible sixty-fifth cycle, the cycle she becomes Madame Director. Her family doesn’t think to ask, and she doesn’t want to share. Besides, it doesn’t matter much once that plane is destroyed - like their creators, any promises made are null and void now. Ultimately though, she can’t regret it. She’d gladly make the same choice again if the alternative meant losing everything - everyone - she held dear. Even though she lost a part of herself.

But it’s after that cycle she becomes a fighter. Magnus is worried, at first. After all, she’s clearly just been through some major shit. And also, she’s like his sister, he doesn’t want to hurt her! But she insists. So day after day, the two can be found on the deck of the Starblaster, sparring and training. It takes some time. She’s a bookish sort, not as strong as Magnus and it’s rough going. But she is nothing if not determined. She’ll never be a mercenary or a prizefighter, but after a full cycle of working with Magnus, she can hold her own. Now, in body as well as mind, she is a fighter. 

Not every attempt at a new class is a success. She realizes quickly that barbarian isn’t going to work out, and she doesn’t have the background of a sorcerer. She never really tries for druid. She was never on one plane for long enough to make a strong connection to the local flora and fauna, and it just didn’t seem as high priority as other things going on. 

She wishes she did, though, when she takes the crew of the Starblaster… away. On a new plane, without friends or family, at least that would have provided some familiarity. Instead the plants and animals are as alien to her as she is to her newly amnesiac family, and she retreats to the sky, to a moon base without even dogs allowed. 

It’s in her search for the relics that she trains as a ranger, and as a rogue. She travels the world in search of six shattered fragments of power, while escaping the equally shattered fragments of her family. A young woman traveling alone needs a way to hunt, as well as a way to show she means business. A longbow fits both of those categories nicely, and it gives her an excuse to wander. And on her travels, though it would be easier, quicker to not get involved, she helps who she can. Her family would never forgive her if she didn’t help where she could. She wouldn’t forgive herself.

She doesn’t when she makes it to Raven’s Roost one day too late.

She stops playing nice after that. Where once she would have asked, negotiated, and befriended, she now lies, steals, and sneaks to find the information she needs. She helps where she can, true, but she does not help those who do not deserve it. And then Wonderland happens, and she does what she has to for the good of the planar system. 

That does not mean she does not regret it.

It’s much, much later when she becomes a cleric. She’s never had much connection to religion, the necessary faith in the divine. At least, not until that spa day with Merle. A man who’s been through as much as her, though he doesn’t know it. A man who knows he’s been put through some serious shit and yet his faith remains. She may have little faith in the gods, but she does have faith in her friends. And she thinks, by extension, she might have some faith secondhand.

And then comes the Day of Story and Song. She faces her family again, and they know. They know what she’s done, but they do not know what she can do. She does. She finally understands, _I am capable. I can fix this._

_I can save us all._

**Author's Note:**

> oooooooh boy ok. This is my first fic so I hope it's like, halfway decent.  
> I just really really love Lucretia okay.


End file.
